' For the second time in her
life Tamara went dead white...." Then follow scenes revelry, in which
Mrs. Glyn, with a courage as astonishing as her power, exposes all that is
fatuous and vicious in the loftiest regions of Russian fashionable
society. Later, Gritzko did kiss Tamara on the lips, but she objected.
Still later he got the English widow in a lonely hut in a snowstorm, and
this was "his hour." But she had a revolver. "'Touch me and I will shoot,'
she gasped.... He made a step forward, but she lifted the pistol again to
her head ... and thus they glared at one another, the hunter and the
hunted.... He flung himself on the couch and lit a cigarette, and all that
was savage and cruel in him flamed from his eyes. 'My God!... and still I
loved you--madly loved you ... and last night when you defied me, then I
determined you should belong to me by force. No power in heaven or earth
can save you! Ah! If you had been different, how happy we might have been!
But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do what I
please.'... For a long time there was silence.... Then the day-light faded
quite, and the Prince got up and lit a small oil lamp. There was a deadly
silence.... Ah! She must fight against this horrible lethargy.... Her arm
had grown numb.
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